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Career Decision-Making

Understanding career decision-making

Career decision-making is a process.

Career decision-making is a process. The process, for many individuals, involves a series of decisions over time with the goal of finding and obtaining a career or employment that fits their needs. The decisions and needs that guide choices may be based on a number of factors. These factors can be both internal and external. Internal factors include: values, interests, skills, talents, personality, and ability to cope with uncertainty. External include: peer pressure, family expectations, resources available (time, money, education, training), employment opportunities, and societal and community standards.

The career decision-making process has no “right” way or gold standard. Individuals can start the career decision-making process with knowledge of where they are, but not where they are going or vice versa, where they are going but not knowing where they are.

The career decision-making process involves the cultivation of multiple skills and takes time and practice to develop. It is a lifelong endeavor and may take a different focus depending on the person’s age, location and career interests. An overall goal of career decision-making is to build a satisfying life through career fulfillment.

Importance of career decision-making

Career development occurs overtime for an individual.

Career development occurs overtime for an individual. It is a process involving the pursuit of meaningful work, often aligned with the individual’s values, interests and skills. Career development includes factors such as: awareness of career options; self-assessment of skills, interests, values, abilities; skills training and/or education; access to mentors and role models; setting goals.

Career decision-making is important for the career development process. Effective career development may be understood as the result of a process or according to specific outcomes. In terms of describing career development as a process, we consider that individuals may develop a stronger sense of confidence in their ability to making decisions about their career, handle uncertainty and anxiety around career decisions and be able to find support when needing to make a career decision. In describing career development based on outcomes, we consider that individuals may pursue work they feel a “calling” for, provides meaning, aligns with their skills and interests, or provides adequate compensation.

The process of career development can be overwhelming for individuals. In addition to having a number of choices and issues to consider, individuals may: lack clarity around what factors are important; lack knowledge about their self and the work world; attempt to cope with expectations and pressures from family and friends; fear of making a “wrong” choice or experiencing the sunk costs fallacy. The ability to cope with decisions that arise during career development can help to decrease general anxiety, improve low self-esteem and maladaptive perfectionism and help develop communication skills and sense of self. 

Understand career decision-making difficulty​​

Difficulties in career decision-making are a commonly seen issue for career counselors. Difficulties in career decision-making are a commonly seen issue for career counselors. Career decision-making difficulties encompass the career development process and career development outcomes. Struggles with decision-making tend to manifest as individual’s being undecided in terms of educational, occupational and career-related paths. More specifically, it can be viewed as the inability to make a decision regarding school or work when asked to, or expected to do so. Recently, career decision-making difficulties, also referred to as career indecision, have been regarded with more balance. Career indecision is neither positive nor negative, but a part of the career development process that people commonly experience. Contemporary views of career indecision are: it is a pause in the career development process; openness to alternative career options; an effort to be at ease with or adapt to uncertainty.

Five domains of difficulties

Career indecision is of central importance to students, employees, career counselors and researchers. Having greater clarity of what constitutes career indecision and how to define and conceptualize it would help those seeking career fulfillment. Currently, an abundance of research exists on career indecision but much of it looks at career indecision from differing perspectives. Recently, much of the data and research on career indecision was combined to form The Integrated Five-Factor Model. Five domains of career indecision were identified: neuroticism/negative affectivity, choice/commitment anxiety, need for information, lack of readiness, and interpersonal conflicts.

General Factors

The first domain encompasses general factors, which means they apply to the individual’s overall well-being and functioning, rather than being specific to career decision-making.

Choice Anxiety

The second domain, which encompasses choice/commitment anxiety and anxiety, describes the anxiety arising in the process of committing to a single career choice.

Lack of Information

The third domain, which encompasses lack of information, describes the difficulty in collecting and processing self- and career-related information.

Lack of Readiness

The fourth domain, which encompasses lack of readiness, describes difficulty in initiating career decision-making and a tendency to disengage from the career decision-making process.

Interpersonal Conflicts

The fifth domain encompasses interpersonal conflicts and inconsistent information and describes the inhibitive interpersonal dynamic for career decision-making.

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Coping Strategies

Focus on Patterns

General anxiety and low self-esteem can impact the decision-making process for a number of individuals. A coping strategy for this type of difficulty is to focus on the pervasive and persistent pattern of anxiety and low self-esteem, rather than focusing on issues specific to career decision-making. For example, anxiety and low self-esteem can manifest as perfectionism, obsession over the “best” or “right” choices, avoidance of making decisions altogether, or prematurely rejecting or foreclosing options. Focusing on treating the underlying anxieties and distorted view of self, allows for an improved psychological foundation and functioning from which more effective decision-making can arise.

Provide Information

For individuals who need more information prior to making a decision or as part of their decision making process, it is beneficial to clarify the type of information needed. In particular, clarifying if the person is interested in more information on self (such as their values, skills, interests, personality) or work (ideal environments; job options, skills needed, salary, etc.). Information giving and gathering has been shown to help reduce anxiety around decision-making. There are a number of resources that can be used in the process (e.g., O*NET OnLine). In the event that an individual may be gathering information even though they possess adequate information to make a decision, it may be beneficial to explore the psychological need, importance or sense of security/control the person feels in having information.

Learning Through Experience

Individuals experiencing lack of readiness in making a decision may be dealing with issues in self-efficacy. Self-efficacy refers to the belief in one’s ability to behave in a way that leads to a specific goal. It is believed that individuals, who feel a lack of readiness, may benefit from learning through experience. The interventions for this individual would involve deliberately reflecting on personal positive experiences in order to enhance their decision-making self-efficacy. Assistance towards building skills in planning, goal development and working towards goals will also be helpful. Underlying the lack of readiness may be maladaptive perfectionism and an avoidance of personal responsibility, which could be worked through within a counseling or therapy context.

Focus on Values

Lastly, interpersonal conflicts can play a role in difficulty with decision-making. Interpersonal conflicts can result from cultural, family and relational circumstances. It is not uncommon for individuals to have different needs or expectations from family, culture and community, but how they navigate those disagreements can result in conflict, distress and difficulty in decision-making. With regard to culture, it is necessary to consider whether an individual is a member of multiple cultures or resides outside of their culture of origin. For client’s struggling with wanting an outcome that differs from family expectations, assisting the client in clarifying and distinguishing their values from values held by their family could provide decision-making clearness. The underlying strategy in dealing with interpersonal conflicts is improved communication skills and sense of support.

Good Enough Options

Choice/commitment anxiety is another commonly seen decision-making difficulty. With choice/commitment anxiety, individuals tend to seek the best career options and experience more decision-making difficulty and regret. Choice/commitment anxiety may also stem from a desire to avoid uncertainty and uncertainty. Helpful coping strategies in this arena involve encouraging people to find satisfaction in obtaining “good enough” options and information. This aims to alleviate the decision-making paralysis that can result from feeling pressure to make the perfect or best decision at all times.

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Uncertainty Management

Understand decision-making uncertainty

Decision-making uncertainty is neither positive nor negative, it simply exists. It occurs when individuals feel they are making a decision and do not have awareness of the “right” path or option. For some individuals decision-making uncertainty involves taking a break from the process and focusing efforts elsewhere. For others it involves gathering information, either about themselves or their perceived work and school options. Gathering information as a means of coping with decision-making uncertainty can be both adaptive and maladaptive.

Decision-making uncertainty also involves a lack of clarity around the process for making a decision. For some individuals the options and choices are unclear, while others struggle with the decision of choosing from the options available and lacking a decision making process.    

Decision-making uncertainty may come across as indecision and fear or anxiety around choosing/not choosing the “right” path. Uncertainty aversion can be a dysfunctional way of coping with lack of clarity. Gathering information about self, vocations and skills is needed.

Importance of uncertainty management

Unmanaged uncertainty can influence career development, the decision-making process and career-related outcomes (such as academic major and job satisfaction; anxiety in committing to a decision; belief in self/self-efficacy).

In an effort to manage uncertainty, some individuals take a maladaptive approach, categorized as uncertainty aversion. Uncertainty aversion is a tendency to fear and avoid uncertainty. There are multiple points throughout the career development process where a person will face uncertainty, often through no fault of their own, but primarily because uncertainty is a naturally occurring part of finding or changing career paths. Uncertainty can exist as a result of being uncertainty about what you need as an individual or because it is unclear whether certain work contexts and environments will be a good fit.

Research has demonstrated that college students who experience higher levels of uncertainty aversion at the beginning of their education tend to experience the following outcomes by the end of their college career: less satisfaction with their major and life satisfaction; less self-efficacy when searching for employment. Overall, uncertainty aversion is a detrimental factor leading to students’ poor career development by the end of college. Based on the research results, finding avenues to support college students and individuals who are in the process of making career-related decisions, via reducing uncertainty aversion would be an important intervention.

In contrast to uncertainty aversion, is the concept of adaptive uncertainty management. The importance of being adaptive is that it allows for a flexibility and openness to experiences that is beneficial in the career development process. Individuals who experience high levels of fear and anxiety around career-related decisions may obsess with career decisions in a manner that limits the options they explore or leads to premature choices. Individuals with adaptive uncertainty management styles tend to adopt adaptive career decision-making strategies, including balancing the need for goal-oriented career preparation and open-minded career exploration.

Coping Strategies

Coping strategies for managing decision uncertainty help with the career decision-making process and in obtaining desirable career outcomes (major and life satisfaction and job search self-efficacy). When coping with decision uncertainty, some additional factors at play tend to be: commitment anxiety, goodness of career choice and personal and contextual factors. The coping strategies explored will encompass each of the factors listed previously.

A manner of dealing with uncertainty anxiety that has proven unhelpful is uncertainty aversion or uncertainty intolerance. To alleviate uncertainty intolerance, it may be helpful for an individual to sense a career calling, cultivate constructivist beliefs or use an assessment to clarify their interests and skills.

Career Calling

Career calling involves deriving a sense of meaning or purpose from work, having the ability to make beneficial contributions to others through work and being guided by an external or internal force towards a particular career. Having a sense of calling is half of the strategy, it is also important for individuals to have access to opportunities to live out their career calling. The focus of the intervention is twofold: first, to provide a space for people to explore how they derive meaning from life and determine if there is a career to which they have been called; second, determine how to access or create opportunities for living out a career calling. Helping an individual to embrace their career calling may help decrease possible uncertainty and increase clarity around actions to take.

Use an Assessment

Regarding personal and contextual factors, it would be worthwhile to consider the age and environment of the individual experiencing decision uncertainty. A coping strategy for individuals in the young to emerging adult age range is to provide support while they experience the pressure of figuring out their identity and sense of self and develop their academic and career interests. This particular time of life can be overwhelming for adults as they are expected to simultaneously determine their identity and their career interests. Providing adults at this stage support through normalization and clarification of needs is beneficial. A possible aim is to assist the individual in developing flexibility rather than seeking full certainty in career decisions and career commitments.

Cultivate Constructivist Beliefs

Research has suggested that if individuals are able to develop the perspective that learning occurs through experience, this may lead to a decrease in decision-making uncertainty. Uncertainty can arise from uncertainty and fear of making the “wrong” choice or wanting to wait until the “right” choice seems clear. By individuals shifting their belief system towards one where learning and the development of what is personally best occurs primarily through experience, the pressure of making the “right” or “wrong” choice may decrease. Rather than dwelling in fear of entering a career that may be a poor fit, the individuals begins to gain experience with viewing decisions and outcomes as opportunities to learn about what the individual desires. The focus turns to taking action around decisions and learning to make sense of one’s experiences in order to gain valuable information about one’s self, interests and skills.

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